HELP! MUS Prealgebra, CD Prealgebra, or BCM?

[home4school]

We are starting school Monday and I'm waffling over math again. I need to get my rising 8th grader up to speed. We had been using TT7 at the beginning of last year and I became fearful when I realized he just didn't "get" it. He was answering all the problems correctly, but couldn't apply it in the real world.

 

I bought Math Mammoth 6 in the hopes of getting him up to speed. We are still working thru that. I bought MUS Prealgebra thinking a nice slow pace would be good for him. Now, I'm starting to doubt. It seems so sparce.

 

I was reading some old threads here where Pongo said you could use the BCM and skip prealgebra:

 

 

Basic Math Information

Basic Math

Here is the low down, I got my stuff and it's all correct. I happen to notice that these DVD's for the Basic Math come with 6 DVD's but, if you were to get them through CD you would get only 4 and this is my understanding on why.

 

After checking the chapters with the DVD's, the Chalkdust DVD's do not have the last 4 chapters that the HM DVD's have.

I went and looked at the Pre-algebra DVD's TOC, and I can see that the last 2 DVD's of the Basic Math I received are identical to the first two of pre-algebra. I am assuming they did this because, the text they (CD) decided to call a 6th grade Basic Math text, is also used as a college remedial text. That's the reason for the College Basic Math title. They had to chop out the last 4 chapters so it can be a suitable 6th grade text, without doing that it would have moved too quickly.

 

What does all this mean?

 

Well basically, if you decide to order the textbooks from Chalkdust, then you will have 2 discs left over using this disc set from HM, the content is IDENTICAL ( I checked with a friends Basic Math from CD). If you decided to get the HM DVD AND the Textbooks that are not from Chalkdust (a MUCH cheaper option IMHO, and what I did for $55 shipped), you will simply omit the last 4 chapters of the non-chalkdust text and the last 2 DVD's from HM. You would do that ONLY if this is what you plan on using for a 6th grade math program. If you plan on using this for an older student and you want to go right into Algebra 1, and skip a prealgebra program then you could use the entire text and ALL the DVD's. The topics are almost identical to Lials Basic College Math, and I know many use that as a pre-algebra text.

Got it?

 

 

I don't know what to do. Stick it out with MUS, jump over to CD prealgebra and see if he can hold his own, or try the BCM and then go into algebra when he's completed that.

 

Math is definately not his strong suit. He gets it, it just takes a while for a topic to sink in. That's why I decided on MUS. But, now I'm doubting the program. I know its not as rigorous as CD and maybe we don't need the rigor. But, I do want him to learn as much as he can. I've even read reviews this morning about students frustration with the upper levels of MUS not having enough explanation.

 

Help someone! Monday is just around the corner!

 

Can you go from BCM right into algebra? Does CD prealgebra have enough review of basic math to maybe supplement with MM is he doesn't get something?

 

Thanks!

Kim

[Katie.Louise]

I don't have much experience to share, but we are using MUS pre-alg starting in a couple of weeks. I am also going to buy Life of Fred pre or beg. alg. It kills me to do this, but I really like the looks/reviews of LOF. We have always used MUS, but it cost me $89 this year (seems like quite a bit more than previous years), and I would really like to find something a little less expensive.

 

It sounds like LOF is good for explaining the "why" of math and letting them see how to apply it to the real world. I am not saying MUS doesn't. I think different programs will click for different people. So, I am going to use both MUS & LOF this year for pre/beg Algebra and see what clicks best. It will cost me more this year, but then (hopefully) I will know which works best for us.

Hope this helps,

Katie

[kprow5]

Hi,

 

My daughter just finished MUS Zeta right before summer started and then I looked at MUS Pre-Algebra. I didn't think it had enough material in it. I looked at the MUS Algebra and it looked like the rest of the PreAlgebra is in that book, so we switched.

 

We bought Chalkdust Basic College Math (Pongo's cheaper way- non Chalkdust) for everything about $35 with shipping. I got the Textbook, six dvds, and student solution Manual. I like the way it looks and it covers all the basic Math ( just to review to make sure she has everything down) and at the end of the book it covers the PreAlgebra portion. I heard and what I saw between both books ( I have both Basic College Math and the PreAlgebra book), the PreAlgebra book does cover all the Basic Math but at a faster pace. The whole number section, it looks like they do the basic Math and then they do PreAlgebra with whole numbers. And the next section is fractions, they do the basic Math and then then PreAlgebra with fractions, and so on.

 

So we are doing the Basic College Math first and depending on how she does, we will either do the PreAlgebra book ( which I bought cheap for everything, thanks to Pongo) or try the Algebra book. My daughter is going into 5th this year, so we are not any rush to hit the Algebra book to early. But I heard you can go straight into the Algebra book from Basic College Math book.

 

I hope this helps :)

 

Karen

Edited August 10, 2010 by kprow5
added more info

[home4school]

I just spent an hour on the phone with Dana Mosley! He is just wonderful! I can't believe the level of support he gives to CD. I still am concerned though. He said the lectures can be anywhere from 15-45 minutes long. I would lose my ds after 15. He also recommended an hour a day. I know at these upper levels we really need to be at that amount, but I'm afraid ds just isn't there.

 

After explaining where my ds is, he still recommended starting with prealgebra. He said we'd be fine.

 

Still don't know what to do. I like the idea of just buying the CD book and supplementing the MUS since the CD lectures are soooo long. I wonder if I could pull that off without the dvds. Also, MUS sequence is so strange, I don't know how I'd line it up.

 

I just don't know.

[lyonsden5]

we're in the same boat, so I'm curious too.

[shanvan]

I hesitated to post because I was hoping others might jump in. I would say not to use the CD Pre Algebra.

 

I'll tell you what happened with my DS .... My DS sounds similar to yours with math -- except he did very well with TT7 and he could apply his learning elsewhere. Math is not his strong suit though, and he doesn't enjoy it. I put him from TT7 into CD Pre algebra. It wasn't a disaster, but I wish I had done something like MUS or another year of review before going into CD Pre Algebra. He did not finish it and he had great difficulty with it. I am going to have him back track some and then finish it this year, but using something else last year would have been a better idea. If I had some extra funds I would probably buy him something else for this year, but money is tight.

 

I read in another thread somewhere that CD Pr Algebra contains quite a bit of Algebra 1 material in it. I wish I had read that sooner. HTH

 

Shannon

 

 

 

We are starting school Monday and I'm waffling over math again. I need to get my rising 8th grader up to speed. We had been using TT7 at the beginning of last year and I became fearful when I realized he just didn't "get" it. He was answering all the problems correctly, but couldn't apply it in the real world.

 

I bought Math Mammoth 6 in the hopes of getting him up to speed. We are still working thru that. I bought MUS Prealgebra thinking a nice slow pace would be good for him. Now, I'm starting to doubt. It seems so sparce.

 

I was reading some old threads here where Pongo said you could use the BCM and skip prealgebra:

 

 

Basic Math Information

Basic Math

Here is the low down, I got my stuff and it's all correct. I happen to notice that these DVD's for the Basic Math come with 6 DVD's but, if you were to get them through CD you would get only 4 and this is my understanding on why.

 

After checking the chapters with the DVD's, the Chalkdust DVD's do not have the last 4 chapters that the HM DVD's have.

I went and looked at the Pre-algebra DVD's TOC, and I can see that the last 2 DVD's of the Basic Math I received are identical to the first two of pre-algebra. I am assuming they did this because, the text they (CD) decided to call a 6th grade Basic Math text, is also used as a college remedial text. That's the reason for the College Basic Math title. They had to chop out the last 4 chapters so it can be a suitable 6th grade text, without doing that it would have moved too quickly.

 

What does all this mean?

 

Well basically, if you decide to order the textbooks from Chalkdust, then you will have 2 discs left over using this disc set from HM, the content is IDENTICAL ( I checked with a friends Basic Math from CD). If you decided to get the HM DVD AND the Textbooks that are not from Chalkdust (a MUCH cheaper option IMHO, and what I did for $55 shipped), you will simply omit the last 4 chapters of the non-chalkdust text and the last 2 DVD's from HM. You would do that ONLY if this is what you plan on using for a 6th grade math program. If you plan on using this for an older student and you want to go right into Algebra 1, and skip a prealgebra program then you could use the entire text and ALL the DVD's. The topics are almost identical to Lials Basic College Math, and I know many use that as a pre-algebra text.

Got it?

 

 

I don't know what to do. Stick it out with MUS, jump over to CD prealgebra and see if he can hold his own, or try the BCM and then go into algebra when he's completed that.

 

Math is definately not his strong suit. He gets it, it just takes a while for a topic to sink in. That's why I decided on MUS. But, now I'm doubting the program. I know its not as rigorous as CD and maybe we don't need the rigor. But, I do want him to learn as much as he can. I've even read reviews this morning about students frustration with the upper levels of MUS not having enough explanation.

 

Help someone! Monday is just around the corner!

 

Can you go from BCM right into algebra? Does CD prealgebra have enough review of basic math to maybe supplement with MM is he doesn't get something?

 

Thanks!

Kim

[home4school]

Oh, math is the bane of my existence! Every. single. year. Math. Math. Math.:banghead:

[home4school]

Anyone else?